Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 21, 1910.djvu/466

 424 The Ancient Hymn-Charms of Ireland.

specially Irish additions, invites the aid of the saints of the Old and New Testaments in turn in a sort of Litany, and relates Biblical instances of deliverances, such as Noah from the flood, Lot from fire, Daniel from the lions, etc., in the regular charm form. The last of these miscellaneous charm-hymns of which I shall make mention is St. Columba's great poem the Alius Prosator, which con- ferred on those who recited it " many graces," freedom from famine and nakedness and strife, the protection of angels, and safety from the attacks alike of earthly foes and of demons, with the certainty that no death should befall the reciter save ordinary death in a bed, or "death on pillow " {absque pretiosa) as the writer of the preface puts it. This long alphabetical hymn, well known in the Galilean Church, and long ascribed to Prosper of Aquitaine,^*^ may be called the Paradise Lost of mediaeval Ireland. It begins by a recitation of the glories of the Trinity, and describes the creation of the Angels, their nine grades and their fall, the creation of the earth and man, the praises of the Hosts of Heaven (meaning here the Angels), the creation of the clouds and sea, rain and rivers, the foundations of the earth, hell, and the worship of the under-world, the Garden of Eden, the thunders of Sinai, future judgment, and the last things.

The cosmogonic speculations in this remarkable hymn are closely akin to those of The Book of Enoch, a book which, though lost until quite recent times elsewhere,

It was followed by a great mortality among the cattle, which brought about a famine all over the country. A marginal note states that the man who was allotted to compose lines 41-43, which are in a different metre, died of the plague.

i^A large portion of the Altus was incorporated by Hraban Maur (786- 856) into a long poem beginning ALterne rerum conditor. It is found in four Mss. among works attributed to St. Prosper of Aquitaine (403-465). In three cases the hymn follows directly on the De vita contemplatitia, a work now usually attributed to Julianus Pomerius (c. 500), though formerly believed to be by Prosper. These copies contain no preface, titles to the stanzas, or glosses.